THE signals are at green for a direct rail link between Shropshire and London.

But work still needs to be done to get a timetable that works so that people in Ludlow and south Shropshire can connect via local services - with calls for different providers to work together and ensure maximum convenience for travellers.

Ludlow MP Philip Dunne has welcomed the Office of Rail Regulation’s decision to approve Virgin Rail’s application to run a direct rail link between Shrewsbury and London.

The twice daily service between Shrewsbury and London Euston stations will run from December 2014.

But a question mark still hangs over a timetable tangle, recently highlighted by the local Green Party, which is calling on service providers to meet and hammer out a system that works.

Mr Dunne has agreed further work is needed.

Ludlow's Green Party has invited Virgin Trains and Arriva Trains Wales to a meeting in a bid to ensure that services are connected.

Arriva Trains Wales is the provider of train services from Ludlow, Craven Arms and Church Stretton into Shrewsbury and the first train of the day arrives in Shrewsbury at 06.43.

The South Shropshire Green Party has made a formal request to both privatised railway companies to allow a connection to be made in Shrewsbury so that residents of Ludlow, Craven Arms and Church Stretton can use the London service.

The Green Party has invited the chief executives of both companies to a meeting at Ludlow Brewery at a date to be agreed in October 2014. At this meeting they will hope to turn a four minute non-connection can be changed to a guaranteed connection.

“We subsidise UK train companies to the tune of over £5 billion and Arriva Train West gets £152 million out of this total,” said Janet Helen Phillips, who is the Green Party candidate for Ludlow at the General Election next year

“It is important that that privatised companies receiving so much cash from the taxpayer recognise the need to respond to reasonable requests from the taxpayer and it is very reasonable to expect these two trains to connect."

The new London service will have two Virgin Trains services in each direction on a weekday, departing at 06.39 and 15.24, with arrival times in Euston at 09.15 and 17.56. Services will call at Telford Central, Wellington, Wolverhampton, Birmingham New Street, Birmingham International, Coventry and Rugby (morning service only). Services back to Shropshire leave Euston at 10.23 and 18.23, arriving in Shrewsbury at 12.58 and 20.55 respectively.